Dodd and Biden differ on funding bill

[ProSense]

Dodd calls for end to Iraq war

By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer 42 minutes ago

BARRINGTON, N.H. - Democratic presidential candidate Chris Dodd said Saturday the United States cannot afford to wait for President Bush's successor to end the war in Iraq.

"We really can't wait another 18 months," the U.S. senator from Connecticut said while campaigning. "We have to have the convictions to stand up to this president."

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For those reasons, he said, it was not difficult for him to vote in the Senate against continued funding for the Iraq war. "That wasn't a courageous vote. It was the right vote to cast," Dodd said. "I don't know how you justify the status quo."

Dodd, a vocal critic of the war in Iraq, said he won't stop suggesting ways to end the war. He was the only 2008 presidential candidate to co-sponsor the Democrats' most aggressive anti-war bill.

"We're going to go back at it again. What bothers me is that we're not stepping up and doing what's right," he said. "Even the Republican leadership is now setting benchmarks, putting some parameters on the White House."

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COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is defending his vote for the war funding bill Congress approved this week, saying he's not willing to "play a game of political chicken" with troops' lives.

The Delaware senator says he's committed to protecting military men and women put in harms way by President Bush's failed policies in Iraq.

"I will not cut funding for the troops that denies them the equipment they need to be safe. I don't care what the politics are of that decision," he said in a news release issued while he was campaigning Saturday in western Iowa. "The president may be prepared to play a game of political chicken with the well-being of our armed forces. I am not."

Other Democratic presidential hopefuls have argued that Congress should have held out on the supplemental funding until the president agreed to include timetables for troop withdrawal.

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Senator Biden, read me and me

[sellitman]

1. Biden is toast.

[ProSense]

2. Kick! n/t